Between 1936 and 1969, around 1600 kneelers were produced for the new Anglican cathedral at Guildford in Surrey, southern England. This was a major collective devotional artwork, involving hundreds of embroiderers, mostly local women. The project was a distinctive form of community and collective artwork, that complicates established understandings of embroidery, craftwork, femininity and politics. It worked within guidelines for design and materials set by the interior designer Lady Prudence Maufe and her husband Sir Edward Maufe, the cathedral's architect. However, it also allowed for considerable autonomy and self-expression on the part of the volunteers. The kneeler collection has a rich and varied iconography that ranges from expected Christian symbolism to representations of modern technology and nuclear weaponry. What emerged over the length of the project was a complex expression of the worldview of post-war England, and particularly the England and Englishness of the Home Counties. This worldview attempted to combine faith in God with faith in technological progress, and to reconcile internationalism with confidence in British military power. The Guildford kneelers are best understood as a distinctive form of conservative modernity, an attempt to place the changes of the mid twentieth century into longer traditions of Christian worship and Englishness.

1936 年至 1969 年间，为英格兰南部萨里吉尔福德的新圣公会大教堂生产了约 1600 个跪垫。这是一件重要的集体虔诚艺术品，涉及数百名刺绣师，其中大部分是当地妇女。该项目是一种独特的社区和集体艺术品形式，它使人们对刺绣、工艺、女性气质和政治的既定理解变得复杂化。它遵循室内设计师普鲁登斯·莫夫女士和她的丈夫、大教堂建筑师爱德华·莫夫爵士制定的设计和材料准则。然而，它也允许志愿者有相当大的自主权和自我表达能力。跪拜系列拥有丰富多样的图像，从预期的基督教象征意义到现代技术和核武器的代表。在这个项目的整个过程中，出现了战后英国世界观的复杂表达，特别是英格兰和家乡的英国性。这种世界观试图将对上帝的信仰与对技术进步的信仰结合起来，并将国际主义与对英国军事力量的信心结合起来。吉尔福德跪者最好被理解为保守现代性的一种独特形式，试图将二十世纪中叶的变化融入基督教崇拜和英国性的悠久传统中。